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Women

In Jailbreak Out of History, revolutionary Amazon theorist Butch Lee shows how the anticolonial struggles of New Afrikan/Black women were central to the unfolding of 19th century amerika, both during and “after” slavery.

The book’s title essay, “The Re-Biography of Harriet Tubman”, recounts the life and politics of Harriet Tubman, who waged and eventually lead the war against the capitalist slave system. As Lee explains, “Harriet Tubman was a radical political figure, someone totally involved as a player in the great political ideas and military storms of her day. She was a guerrilla. Someone who lived and taught others ...........READ MORE

People of color, transgender people, and gender non-conforming people continued to experience higher rates of homicide in 2012. LGBTQH people of color represented 53% of total reported survivors and victims of all hate crimes, but 73.1% of homicide victims. Black and African-American people were particularly overrepresented in the homicide rates: over half of reported hate murders had Black or African-American victims, even though Black and African American people made up only 15% of total survivors and victims ...........READ MORE

Twenty-five years ago, I, a hapless reporter on assignment, went to the DC Jail and met the woman who was to be my life’s partner. I interviewed her about her political bombing case; we fell in love; I visited her in various prisons for 11 years; she was released; we’re now spending the rest of our lives working out our relationship, which has much to do with politics and everything with what she went through in prison.

Whatta story, right? I haven’t written much about this because I’ve found it impossible to ...........READ MORE

Everything about Crystal’s life was ordinary, except for her death. She is one of a demographic—white women who don’t graduate from high school—whose life expectancy has declined dramatically over the past 18 years. These women can now expect to die five years earlier than the generation before them. It is an unheard-of drop for a wealthy country in the age of modern medicine. Throughout history, technological and scientific innovation have put death off longer and longer, but the benefits of those advances have not been shared equally, especially across the race and class divides that characterize 21st–century America. Lack of ...........READ MORE

A year ago, Ebony magazine published a useful article about CeCe McDonald, the 23-year-old Black transgender woman who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for second-degree manslaughter despite clear evidence that she was simply defending herself from a violent racist and transphobic attack.

It was a good article, and included facts and information of relevance both to McDonald’s case, and more broadly. For instance, that

Studies show that, despite comprising only 8 percent of the LGBTQ community, transgender women account for nearly half of all LGBTQ hate crime murders. Among this group, transgender women of color are nearly ...........READ MORE

Stories going around Ciudad Juarez about a woman killing rapist bus drivers, superheroine style, and going by the name Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers, have gone international, now being reported on in the LA Times, the Guardian, and elsewhere. As BBC reported on Monday:

Mexican police investigating the murder of two bus drivers last week are examining claims the killer was a woman seeking to avenge sexual abuse.

Two drivers from the same company in Ciudad Juarez were killed last week.

A woman who identified herself as “Diana the huntress” sent emails to newspapers and posted messages on ...........READ MORE

On August 18, 2006, seven Black/New Afrikan lesbians from Newark, New Jersey went to Manhattan’s West Village for a night out on the town. As is all too typical, while they were out minding their business a male bystander began to harass and finally assaulted them, making sexist and homophobic comments as well as lewd advances and telling one of the women that he would “Fuck her straight.”

The women defended themselves, and a fight ensued. It ended with all the young women being arrested.

After a hellish year-long trip through the legal system, three of the women took plea ...........READ MORE

The following text was written by West German feminist Ingrid Strobl in the 1980s. It was translated into English and published in the European anti-imperialist magazine Clash #6 and was subsequently reprinted in the North American anti-imperialist magazine Breakthrough #23 – Fall 1992. Note that much of the historical data on which Strobl bases her claim that between 9 and 30 million women were killed in the European witchhunt has been called into question: see Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt by Jenny Gibbons.

An important public service announcement regarding police invasions of women’s shelters in canada, from the fine folks at No One Is Illegal Toronto:

OUT OF OUR SHELTERS! OUT OF OUR LIVES! was the message delivered to the Canada Border Services Agency on March 8th, International Women’sDay, by the 120 plus women and trans-folks who poured into the TorontoRape Crisis Centre for an Emergency Assembly.

The Assembly was called after it came to the attention of the Shelter | Sanctuary | Status campaign that in Feb. 2010 an Immigration Enforcement officer went into a women’s shelter, looking to deport ...........READ MORE

AN EXCERPT FROM THE MILITARY STRATEGY OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN, AVAILABLE FROM LEFTWINGBOOKS.NET

Amazons need a different viewpoint of our own on world reality, and it has to be a military viewpoint. If someone isn’t waving a gun, women don’t think it’s military. But patriarchal capitalism doesn’t see it that way. With a wink and a nod, they know that in their world it all can be military—whether we are told to call it economics, nation-building, recreation or health.

Right now people are seeing by the light of burning cities in the Middle East that it isn’t about terrorism ...........READ MORE